Kelly McParland: Beijing makes a move on pollution, but it may be lost in the smog

Taking more cars off the road looks like peanuts against the surge in auto sales that China has trumpeted as proof of its economic advance. Xinhua suggests "population control" is the only answer to Beijing's smog.

China’s top communists came under considerable criticism recently when choking smog blanketed the capital, and many other parts of the country.

The pollution in Beijing was so bad that children and the elderly were advised to remain indoors. The Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Centre said the density of PM2.5 particulates — tiny particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs — had passed 700 micrograms per cubic meter, 28 times the “safe” level set by the World Health Organization. The U.S. Embassy, which also measures pollution according to a stricter index, said 18 of 24 hourly readings in one period were too high to measure.

The U.S. Embassy says 18 of 24 hourly pollution readings in one period were too high to measure.

The outcry was so pronounced that even state-c0ntrolled media joined in. Embarrassed, communist party officials vowed prompt action. On Tuesday the mayor of Beijing announced his response:

Speaking at the opening of the annual session of the city’s largely rubber stamp legislature, Beijing mayor Wang Anshun said the government would take 180,000 old vehicles off the road this year and control the “excessive” growth of new car sales. The heating systems of 44,000 old, single-story homes and coal-burning boilers in the city centre will also be replaced with clean energy systems, Wang said in a speech carried live on state television. “We will speed up the construction of a beautiful city with blue skies, green earth and clean water,” he said.

It may take some time to convince a skeptical public. Beijing has introduced pollution restraints in the past, only to allow them to be widely ignored. “These plans are just dreams,” wrote one blogger, quoted by Reuters.

Britain’s Financial Times, however, said the scope of the new rules was “unprecedented” and noted that authorities sought public feedback, a sign they might be more serious than in the past.

Restaurants will be banned from burning coal, cars will be subjected to random testing for emissions, factories will be forced to shut on bad air days and tougher efforts put into controlling dust at construction sites.

Still, taking more cars off the road looks like peanuts against the surge in auto sales that China has trumpeted as proof of its economic advance. Xinhua, the official news agency, quoted a pollution expert declaring that real progress is impossible unless “population control” measures are introduced.

“The core issue with Beijing’s air quality is the growing population,” said Jiang Yi, director of the Energy Saving Studies Center at Tsinghua University. “Currently, the population burden on Beijing’s environment has reached maximum levels. Pollution treatment cannot go on without population control.”

Population in the capital is approaching 21 million — almost equal to Canada’s entire population outside Ontario — an increase of almost five million in five years. Beijing has supported mass highway construction to accommodate the growth of auto traffic: more than five million vehicles on the road, compared to 3.3 million in 2008. A licence plate lottery system is already in place in an attempt to limit expansion. According to the WHO there are almost 400,000 premature deaths in China every year, mostly related to pollution.

Which suggests a few more restrictions on cars, and a ban on barbecues, will make only a small dent in the problem — if the new measures are actually enforced.

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